Month: March 2016

In the wake of all the festivities my mom and I found a crazy new way to dye eggs (courtesy of Martha Stuart Magazine). Grab some Mason jars (or any deep, wide mouthed cup), food dye, vinegar, and dried goods like beans, quinoa, and lentils!

Fill your containers about a fourth of the way full with your dried goods. Keep everything separate, and try to have dried goods of different sizes. This will determine how speckled your eggs will be in the end.

Next, add the food dye. I used about 10-20 drops per container. You want the beans, rice, barley, etc. to be dampnot wet. If a color dries out when you’re dying your egg, don’t panic! Just add a little vinegar to the cup and mix it around.

To dye your eggs just plop them in the containers and gently shake them around. It’s that easy! And there’s very little dye involved so you can take them out with your fingers and not have to worry about staining your hands! But be sure to let the eggs dry in a egg carton and not on the counter top, just in case.

And there you have it, how to make beautiful speckled and marbled Easter eggs in under five steps!

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Instead of a playlist this week I’m just going to rant about Hamilton.

Has anyone out there listened to the whole thing, all three hours, in one sitting? Am I the only one?

Well let me tell you, it’s beautiful. Not even just that, it’s glorious. It has:

beat boxing

rap battles

swelling classical ensembles

piano jams

and so much more

Has anyone fact checked this? Everything I know about US history and everything I’ve picked out of this musical genius soundtrack is accurate. Factually correct. And rhymes. Who couldn’t love rap battles between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson? Maybe it’s the history nerd in me but I’m head over heels for this soundtrack and dearly disappointed that I didn’t take the chance to listen to it when it first debuted.

What are your thoughts?

xo Bailey

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From zombie Jesus to monster-sized bunnies breaking into our houses delivering food to our unsuspecting children, Easter is a time of joy for all. No really, I love Easter. My favorite tradition is making Pysanka Easter eggs with my church group. My other favorite thing about Easter is all the wacky facts surrounding the holiday. I’ve rounded up the best of the lot for you:

The UK’s first chocolate egg was made in 1873 (the same year my sorority Delta Gamma was founded!)

Remember the Easter Bunny I talked about earlier? Yeah, he’s actually
from Europe and came to the US in the 18th century. Probably because all the Europeans got tired of him breaking into their houses or something…

Easter is celebrated at different times depending on if you follow Western Christianity or Eastern Christianity!

76% of people eat the ears on the chocolate bunny first, 5% go for the feet and 4% go for the tail. Personally, I eat the ears first. What about you?

Florida held the largest Easter egg hunt, where 9,753 children searched for 501,000 eggs. (I am not a child but 10/10 would have participated if I were there)

Happy Easter!

xo Bailey

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Wow has this weekend been crazy! I really didn’t think I had a lot to do but apparently I was wrong. Very, very wrong. With two exams and a quiz coming up this week (not to mention the holiday this coming Sunday) things are about to get that much more insane! So here’s my playlist for this week, as I try to stay calm, cool, and collected, but also kick some serious butt on all my assignments.

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Does anyone else remember the movie that came out about five years ago? Wasn’t much of a hit. But I clearly remember the book floating through my elementary school classrooms, being passed off from one curious child to the next. I even had to be put on a wait list at the library to read the sequel.

In case you never read The City of Ember, I’ll give you a short synopsis. The end of the world has come and gone. An entire civilization, perhaps the only one left, has moved underground with no access to the outside world. They grow vegetables in greenhouses powered by electricity, use electricity to get water from inside the earth, and have electric light bulbs for suns. Sadly, the electricity is running out – quickly. Lina Mayfleet, a child of Ember, discovers a mysterious document that could save the city. She and her friend Doon must lead the city into the outside world before they’re trapped in darkness forever.

Much like The City of Ember, The Light of the Fireflies by Paul Pen is set in a post-apocalyptic world. A family is living underground after a fire nearly burns them all to death. The main character, a young boy, spends his days wondering what the world is like outside, why the family is shut in the basement, and who the father of his sister’s baby is. After fireflies appear in his bedroom he creates a master plan to escape, similar to the way Lina and Doon make it out of Ember.

Overall The Light of the Fireflies is a mature, and haunting, story about “finding the light in the darkness of places” (as the back of the book reads, but really, it’s true). It’s about finding a way out of the situation you’re in rather than making the best of things. If you’re ready to cry, get angry, and feel inspired you can pick up this book on the Kindle eStore (free in the month of March for Prime members) or Barnes and Noble.

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Spring break is over and I’m back at the great old University of Georgia. That being said, it goes almost without saying that I made a playlist for the drive from home number one in Asheville to home number two here in Athens. I kept circling back to the Brad Paisley homecoming concert I went to last year and incidentally ended up with a track almost exclusively made up of country jams. Not my usual stuff, but I’ll share it here anyway.

xo Bailey

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If you know me then you’re probably aware that I cover everything in stickers. Even my backpack has patches from places I’ve visited. Not only do stickers liven up a plain old water bottle or laptop case, they can be conversation starters! For instance, I’m obssessed with Vineyard Vines and put their whale stickers on pretty much any surface that’s sticker-able and a girl in my math class ended up talking to me solely because she loves Vineyard Vines just as much. (Who could blame her, their whale logo is so adorable!)

As many of you sticker connoisseurs know, lots of companies that used to give out stickers for free now no longer do that. There’s only a short list of retailers that still give out stickers for free (all you have to do is ask):

Word is they’ve stopped making stickers, but email them at CustomerService@KielJamesPatrick.com to ask for some, it can’t hurt!

You can still buy stickers though! Some companies will even pay for your shipping if you purchase a certain amount of sticker merchandise. Others will give you the sticker for free and have you pay for the shipping. Either way, it’s still a pretty good deal.